Book-Learning and Learning Books

W I first visited Cleveland, a number of years ago, I was anxious to meet a professor at Western Reserve University, now a valued colleague, with whom I had been in correspondence. I called up his home, and was informed that I could find him at the library. "The university library?" I asked. "No. The public library, downtown. It's just around the corner from your hotel." The suggestion that I could find my man at a public library seemed rather like being told that I could find a needle in a haystack, especially since I did not even know what he looked like. But even worse: I could not imagine what such a learned individual as I knew the professor to be could find to interest him in a public library. M y experience with public libraries in other cities had taught me that their collections were formed with almost everybody in mind except scholars.